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The Kimberley – 2017

Darwin to Broome – June to September

The Kimberley Coast, as the crow flies around the edge of it, is roughly 600 nautical miles long from Broome in Western Australia to the Northern Territory Border. Of course, it is vasty longer than this, encompassing inlets, rivers, bays and islands. The scenery can range from the spectacular to the mundane and you will find the water’s edge abutting mangroves, sandy beaches, muddy inlets and spectacular escarpments. The birdlife is prolific but you need time – and quiet – to enjoy it. Crocodiles are plenty, more prolific in some places than others. Sengo spent three months traveling from Darwin to Broome (7 June to 3 September), her crew taking in as much as they could, but three months is no where near enough time to experience all of this coast. Most of the land along the Kimberley Coast is Aboriginal land and you need permission to go to shore; in some cases you are restricted to specific locations and in other cases specific locations need a fee payed permit (with time limits). At this stage there are no restrictions on the time anchored in the water. We knew three months was never going to be enough time to see it all but we now have a taste and we have a list of things we missed that we hope we can get back to (including some iconic waterfalls – but we may just take a helicopter ride to see them (instead of slogging up rock strewn gorges)).

Travelling by personal craft means that, in the main, you can take your time. The big disadvantage of this, is that no matter how much information you read up on beforehand, you miss out on the interpretation guidance of experts that the commercial tour operators have access to.

Photographically, some of the Kimberley is spectacular but a camera never captures the true colours (and philosophically what are true colours anyway – we all see the world differently). That said, a professional photographer would get a great portfolio spending time here. I am not a professional photographer. And I don’t have professional cameras. Add to this most of my photographs for the journey were taken whist I was on board a moving or rocking boat. To try to counter shake I had the automatic settings mostly on the ‘sports’ function. The downside of this of course is that you lose focal length (needed for landscape photographs) and the ability to manipulate the settings. As a result, photographs for the Darwin to Broome trip may not be in perfect focus… but you will get the idea. A selection of photographs is at the end of this post.

Our anchorages for the journey are listed below as well as the birds we identified along the way. Also listed are the commercial tourist boats we came across in our journey (just in case you are interested in taking in the Kimberley the luxurious way). I suspect it was probably a result of us leaving so late in the season but we only saw around a dozen private vessels.

Aboard Sengo newsletters for June, July and August will be published separately.

Anchorages

The following table lists the ‘approximate’ location of where we anchored during our three month journey. Some anchorages were prettier than others and quite a few were just overnight stops as part of an ongoing journey. (Note: We take no responsibility for the safety of any vessel or individual that tries to anchor in the same locations as those listed below).

Location

Latitude

longitude

Blaze Point

Not recorded

Anson Bay

13°26′.551S

130°04′.039E

Port Keats

14°07′.884S

129°32.828E

Yelche Beach

14°18′.699S

129°23′.229E

Reverley Island

14°22′.018S

127°48′.255E

Berkeley River 1

14°28′.402S

127°41′.327E

Berkeley River 2

14°23′.405S

127°43′.838E

Berkeley River 3

14°21′.740S

127°45′.786E

Seaplane Bay

14°06′.064S

127°32′.312E

Kalooma Bay

13°56′.403S

127°19′.964E

King George River 1

14°02′.280S

127°19′.623E

King George River 2

14°00′.798S

127°21′.225E

King George River 3

13°58′.905S

127°21′.705E

Glycosmis Bay 1

13°53′.411S

127°04′.978E

Glycosmis Bay 2 (inner)

13°54′.361S

127°03′.768E

Jims Bay

13°46′.486S

126°59′.614E

Cape Talbot

13°48′.543S

126°45′.397E

Mission Bay 1

14°06′.687S

126°41′.466E

Mission Bay 2

14°06′.919S

126°42′.600E

Honeymoon Bay

14°05′. 922S

126°40′.959E

Governor Islands

13°57′.521S

126°41′.144E

Sir Graham Moore Island

13°54′.303S

126°32′.927E

Jar Island

14°0’9.324S

126°13′.699E

Freshwater Bay

14°00′.768S

126°10′.965E

Parry Harbour

13°58′.826S

126°04′.396E

Osborne Islands area

14°21′.016S

126°03′.499E

Mitchell River 1

14°34′.005S

125°40′.532E

Mitchell River 2

14°37′.400S

125°39′.700E

Wollaston Island

Not recorded

Palm Island

14°34′.050S

125°25′.897E

Swift Bay E

14°31′.336S

125°35′.800E

Swift Bay W

14°32′.004S

125°33′.197E

Bigge Island 1 Wary Bay

14°27′.903S

125°08′.734E

Bigge Island 2 South

14°38′.597S

125°07′.527E

Hunter River -Porosus Creek 1

15°00′.440S

125°24′.728E

Hunter River

14°59′.256S

125°29′.342E

Hunter River- Porosus Creek 2

14°59′.116S

125°24′.591E

Careening Bay

15°06′.185S

125°00′.312E

Hanover Inlet

15°19′.133S

124°46′.427E

Sheep Island

15°29′.704S

124°36′.969E

Sampson Inlet

15°29′.861S

124°29′.501E

Deception Bay

15°38′.924S

124°26′.112E

Red Cone Creek

16°06′.609S

124°36′.910E

Raft Point

16°04′.529S

124°27′.498E

Montgomery Reef

15°58′.334S

124°16′.965E

Melomys Island

16°09′.571S

124°04′.242E

Dugong Bay 1

16°24′.539S

123°53′.610E

Dugong Bay 2

16°23′.462S

123°53′.444E

Dugong Bay 3

16°22′.498S

123°51′.303E

Horizontal Falls

16°22′.235S

123°58′.361E

Talbot Creek

16°18′.386S

123°47′.718E

Silver Gull Creek

16°09′.889S

123°42′.291E

Coppermine Creek

16°12′.535S

123°36′.611E

Dunvert Island

16°16′.898S

123°31′.809E

The Graveyard

16°21′.271S

123°41′.011E

Crawford Bay

16°29′.709S

123°29′.336E

Catamaran Bay

16°27’.532S

123°00′.891E

Cape Leveque

16°23′.033S

122°57′.443E

Beagle Bay

16°54′.507S

122°29′.752E

Broome

Commercial Tourist Operators

Apart from one notable exception, all interaction with commercial tourist operators has been terrific, some crew quite inquisitive, and all friendly. Listed below are the commercial tourist operators we came across during our three-month journey. Each has its own appeal (and its own price tag!).

The Bird list

Whilst we weren’t on a ‘bird watching tour,’ we did however take the binoculars just about everywhere we went. Of course we saw many more birds than we actually identified and on some days I’ve listed our daily bird list, whilst on other days I haven’t listed any at all. The list that covers the entire trip is below (they are in no particular order)..

6 thoughts on “The Kimberley – 2017”

Thanks Chris. The birds were frustrating – you can hear so many – you just can’t see them! On the outer reaches there were lots of terns but as yet I am unable to differentiate most of them. Hopefully by the time we get down south I will be better at it – they all seem to have the same amount of black on their heads!